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Topic: Towers of Magic (Read 18726 times)

Here is first completed module for DC V.1.0. It is small vanilla module that will test your adventuring skills and i am hoping it will be fun. It is not perfect, and i am hoping to hear what you can tell me to make it better. Made for 1st Level PC character(s), that will be joined by NPCs trough the game.

Okay, I managed to complete the mod in about an hour. Normally, if the engine was perfectly working, this adventure would not be beatable with level 1 characters. However, due to some nuances with the AI, particularly this bug, and some non-functioning monster abilities, it was doable, although quite immersion breaking.

SPOILERS FOLLOW!

Of the mandatory combats (I skipped the entire exterior area, but looking at the events in the editor there's a few battles that look very difficult if not impossible for 1st level characters, such as the Hill Giant, albeit they are all optional), only the Giant Badgers, Skeletal Dogs, and the lone Ghast are reasonable for 1st level characters. Now let's look at the other battles.

The Gargoyles would normally be completely IMMUNE to normal weapons, of which there are absolutely none available beforehand (and balance-wise should not normally be available to 1st level characters anyway). However, since their immunity wasn't functioning properly, the battle was winnable. While a single one (without the weapon immunity) may be manageable like the Ghast fight, the possibility of two of them appearing would make the battle extremely difficult for a 1st level party, especially for being only the second battle in the entire game.

The Giant Scorpion was a much worse case, with a very tough AC of 3 and being able to do up to 24 damage per round. Most importantly, though, it has the ability to poison, and the spell Neutralize Poison is completely unavailable, not even at the Temple in town. I ended up having to drop my poisoned character and roll a new one, since they were effectively permanently dead.

The Efreeti is no doubt the top offender, with its 10 HD, 2 AC, and 3-24 damage per round, meaning on average it would instantly KO any char except a max constitution, max HP warrior in a single hit. Technically, though, it is a completely optional fight. Still, it normally would be completely out of the range of 1st level or even 2nd level characters.

I would also prefer that you do not have combat events with blank text; it is somewhat confusing when you take a step and suddenly the game jumps to the combat screen without any warning. At the very least, write in the text that you are being attacked or something; some of the early tower floors do this, but then the practice suddenly stops halfway through.

In terms of loot, my party ended up with two Short Bow +1, a Shield +1, a Stone of Good Luck, a Gauntlets of Ogre Power, a Girdle of Stone Giant Strength, a Girdle of Fire Giant Strength, two Rings of Wizardry 2nd Level, a Scroll of Mirror Image, a Scroll of Monster Summoning, seven Potions of Extra Healing, and a whopping Flail +3! A lot of these items would be VERY overpowered for a 1st level party, if not for the fact that the strength boosting items were bugged and did not work anyway. Generally, in a short first level adventure, I wouldn't expect more than one or two +1 items, and nothing stronger than that; it wouldn't be unreasonable to get some higher end non-magical equipment instead, such as ordinary Plate Mails, Long Swords, Two-Handed Swords, Composite Bows, etc. that are not available in the town. Permanent magic items such as the rings and girdles should be rarer and more likely reserved for higher levels.

Also, the Combat Treasure event is supposed to be chained BEFORE the Combat event, not after, otherwise it shows up in the next Combat event you encounter. In one instance (the 3rd floor of the second tower) you used Give Treasure instead of Combat Treasure, so after looting that battle I was immediately greeted by another treasure collecting prompt.

Story-wise, the wizard is supposed to be a good guy? Is he aware that there's evil beings, namely the undead and the gargoyles, guarding his towers? Why would he employ such things? The party trying to attack him on sight would not be an unexpected choice given that, although it does lead to a less satisfying ending (or rather, seemingly no ending at all, since he's gone if you try going back to him...)

Lastly, just some organization things: you don't need to include any RecordXXX.log files (which are meant for testing), the other config files, and the txt databases (races.txt, items.txt, etc.) in the Data folder in your release build. You also should try to minimalize the Saves folder; include your default characters and/or a single save file with the default party, but you don't need to include any other save files you used for testing.

Thanks for all being said. Now here is answer and this contains big spoilers for people not played this module which supposed to be fun and just testing all things done till now.

First for give treasure event, every floor had one if you went in the middle of the floor you would find more tresaure like healing potions, items ect meaning you tried to search the tower. True i haven't included description before combat or after, or when searching the place.

For efreeti and other evil beings, those guys are like outside monsters just there by chance trying to make their own ends. Wizard is very busy with his research in his rooms and doesn't care about the rest of the world except extraplanar spaces where he is trying to do his magic and he is most of the time away. Efreeti btw was real tough but he is not meant to be fought if you really don't wan't to win all, the best tactic might be to run away, which is btw sometimes bugged. Also there is a bug when turning undead with Giant skeleton in the woods, even if he is turned it doesn't work and games also crashed i think when casted magic or something after that. I will try writting bugs while playing because now i can't remember all.

Similarly to this encounter was a Green dragon encounter from Shadowdale adventure for 1st levels which of course will attack the party, but you can meet it and you don't have to fight real tough monsters all the times. Of course there might be a treasure after also so there might be a chance for some RPing too.

About the loot, there should be some for magical towers and adventures who fought the dangers of it. I am not sure about the girdle of stone giant strenght though and i think it might be a bug because it is won after the fight with orcs unless i somehow didn't put it as a combat treasure after efreeti battle. But i am sure i got it few times while combating orcs

Anyway the main problem of the module logicaly is that one the first mainland level there is only one tower instead of 3, though i made it that they can be accessed trough first tower still i am missing them on first level.

I might work more on this design and i am not sure yet what to do. I was thinking to make a newer version called Towers of Mistery with some more adventure. We will see how it will go, but i need to learn more about DC designing that is for sure. Anyway now lets see that Arena design will play it a bit first. Thanks for comments

That makes sense with the Efreeti. That Flail +3 and Girdle of Fire Giant Strength don't come for free.

Regarding Combat Treasure events, like I said earlier, you're supposed to place them so it activates before the Combat event you want to give that treasure occurs, or else it will awarded in the next Combat event you run into. Right now, for example, the Combat Treasure for the Short Bow +1 occurs after the first tower fight (the badgers). If the party fights the badgers, then leaves the tower and runs into the orcs in the forest, the Short Bow +1 would appear in the orcs' loot.

I have updated new remapped V1.2b version. It has lots of random combat and it might be hard fight, but i hope it will be interesting. I tried to test it but gave up till tomorrow, when my cleric tried turning 2 remaining juju zombies and at least one that i killed got up and started to flee with -10hp. Anyway beside a lot of bugs it still feels to me like a dream to be able to make adventures like this, really great program. Link is in the first post for those who are interested in playing, everything should be in place.

Would you be interested in helping with the DungeonCraftproject? It sounds as if you think you have uncovered abug. If you were to take the trouble to submit a well-organized bug report, we might be able to fix it.

I am very interested in helping with DC development. I also noticed that when moving with character and then clicking on its icon, characters flee and game crashes. I am not sure if it supposed to work like that.

I will try and i would like to be part of the DC team really, and would like to learn to work with Visual Basic and be able to modify DC. I have just installed 2013 express and downloading this videos hoping to learn something http://channel9.msdn.com/series/Visual-Basic-Fundamentals-for-Absolute-Beginners/03 but i am not sure if that might be the best idea, though i am thinking for now that it might be better to try working with DC then to create my own program from scratch. I need that for my system of RPG rules, i can post link of my pdf books here if needed, they are a bit older but i am still working on it.

If you would like to help us out, you can make a mini-mod showing the bug occuring and attach it to a post in these forums.

Mini-mods:The purpose of a mini-mod is to illustrate one (1) bug with Dungeon Craft. Multiple issues, though closely related, still require multiple mini-mods.

The bug should be illustrated on one level of size 10x10 and use the default Resources.

Your mini-mod should include:

Data folder all .dat config.txt Playfile.log Bass.dll one .lvlSaves folder only characters and game necessary to illustrate bugUAFErr_Edit.ttUAFEff_Engine.txt

The size of the mini-mod should be under 400 KB.

Note, you must create the Playfile,log. Play your mini-mod up until / through the bug and then exit. In the Data folder there will be files called RecordXXX.log, where XXX is a number. Usually the higher the number, the more recent the log, but always check the time/date stamp to make sure. Find the most recent one that was just created and rename it to Playfile.log to include in your mini-mod.